I find it quite interesting that among the 27 judges assigned to the US District of Southern Florida, the DoJ/FBI chose not to seek authorization for the raid on the Trump residence at MAL (Mar-a-Lago) from a single one of any of the same 27 federal judges.
No, the G-Men instead elected to hit up a magistrate by the name of Bruce E. Reinhart.
Just for clarification purposes, I’m going to get the official definitions of exactly what a federal magistrate is, then I’ll cite some of the rather questionable history of Magistrate Reinhart.
According to the official website for the United States (federal) Courts (emphasis mine);
They have authority to issue warrants, conduct preliminary proceedings in criminal cases, such as initial appearances and arraignments, and hear cases involving petty offenses committed on federal lands. In most districts, magistrate judges handle pretrial motions and hearings in civil and criminal cases.
Like I said earlier… a glorified administrative clerk.
Is it just me or does anyone else think that if the Feds are going to make an unprecedented and historical move such as raiding the personal residence of a President of the United States, they would at least hit up a fully-fledged federal judge to authorize it?
One would think.
But maybe there’s a reason why the DoJ/FBI chose the path of least resistance.
As noted by reporters Miranda Devine, Mark Moore and Samuel Chamberlain of the New York Post (emphasis mine);
The Florida federal magistrate judge who signed off on a search warrant authorizing the FBI raid of former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort donated to Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign — months after he left the local US Attorney’s office to rep employees of convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein who had received immunity in the long-running sex-trafficking investigation of the financier.
Sources tell The Post that Judge Bruce Reinhart approved the warrant that enabled federal agents to converge on the palatial South Florida estate on Monday in what Trump called an “unannounced raid on my home.”
Reinhart was elevated to magistrate judge in March 2018 after 10 years in private practice. That November, the Miami Herald reported that he had represented several of Epstein’s employees — including, by Reinhart’s own admission to the outlet, Epstein’s pilots; his scheduler, Sarah Kellen; and Nadia Marcinkova, who Epstein once reportedly described as his “Yugoslavian sex slave.”
Kellen and Marcinkova were among Epstein’s lieutenants who were granted immunity as part of a controversial 2007 deal with federal prosecutors that allowed the pervert to plead guilty to state charges rather than federal crimes. Epstein wound up serving just 13 months in county jail and was granted work release.
According to the Herald, which cited court documents, Reinhart resigned from the South Florida US Attorney’s Office effective on New Year’s Day 2008 and went to work for Epstein’s cohorts the following day.
Ten months after starting work for Epstein’s co-conspirators, according to Federal Election Commission records, Reinhart gave $1,000 directly to the Obama campaign and another $1,000 to its fundraising arm, the Obama Victory Fund. Though the records show the judge made mostly small-dollar donations to his law firm’s political action committee in subsequent years, Reinhart also donated $500 to Jeb Bush’s 2016 presidential campaign in November 2015.
Reinhart was later named in a civil lawsuit by two of Epstein’s victims that accused him of violating Justice Department policies by switching sides in the middle of the Epstein investigation, suggesting he had spilled inside information about the probe to build favor with the notorious defendant, the Herald reported in 2018.
In a 2011 affidavit, Reinhart denied he had done anything improper and insisted that since he was not involved in the federal investigation of Epstein, he was not privy to inside information about the case.
However, in a 2013 court filing, Reinhart’s former colleagues contradicted him, saying that he had “learned confidential, non-public information about the Epstein matter” while employed by the US Attorney’s Office. Reinhart noted to the Herald in response that a complaint filed against him by a lawyer for Epstein’s victims had been dismissed by the Justice Department.
Is just me, or does this guy REEK of Swamp?
Please keep in mind that thus guy is BACK to again working for the federal government.